Xantolo

I don't follow a ton of traditions, but those I have adopted are dearly held.  When Amya became my God-daughter we began the tradition of making gingerbread houses together every winter.  Usually the frosting-fueled madness evolves into dancing while Kevin plays guitar, doing some impromptu yoga, and sending the sugar-frenzied kids home to their mother, my friend, Pixie.

Yeah.  I'm going to pay for all that one day.

Another tradition I adore is Day of the Dead.  I never really understood the meaning of this day until I came across an explanation by Barbara Kingsolver in Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.  Kingsolver writes, "I'm drawn to this celebration, I'm sure, because I live in a culture that allows almost no room for dead people.  I celebrated Dia de los Muertos in the homes of friends from a different background, with their deceased relatives, for years before I caught on.  But I think I understand now.  When I cultivate my garden I'm spending time with my grandfather, sometimes recalling deeply buried memories of him, decades after his death.  While shaking beans from an envelope I have been overwhelmed by a vision of my Pappaw's speckled beans and flat corn seeds in peanut butter jars in his garage, lined up in rows, curated as carefully as a museum collection.  That's Xantolo, a memory space opened before my eyes, which has no name in my language."

This passage continues to move me, in part because my own experience of gardening is so infused with love and remembrance of my grandparents.  They were the first example I saw of people eating what they grow.  They had such a sweet rhythm, after passing over 60 years in one another's company.  Without many words, they erected trellis for grapes, painted the trunk of the pear tree, harvested tomatoes for my grandmother to can, fry, or serve fresh.  I don't think I would be drawn to soil the way that I am if my grandfather hadn't shown me it's richness as a child.

Even though I wasn't attentive to learning directly from them, their example was imprinted on me.  My grandmother gave birth to my mother when she was 28-- late for her generation.  My mother birthed me at 39-- late for hers!  I'm grateful that my grandparents lived into their 90s so that I was able to have a relationship with them.  However, if there hadn't been so many years between us I would have loved to have learned more from them.

That memory space of xantolo sometimes also becomes apparent to me in yoga.  I feel things in my body that seem remniscent of who I come from.  I remember experiences of my family members and feel the impact in my own body.  The linear nature of time feels a bit untethered-- in some ways yoga makes me feel younger than years ago, when I began practicing.

To honor xantolo, the imprint of those we love in us and upon us, I usually read the longer section on Day of the Dead from Animal, Vegetable, Miracle to my yoga students.  I put them somewhere where most people are happy-- like legs up the wall-- and gradually tell this story.  Some of them are intimately familiar with this tradition.  To others, it's brand new.  While describing lush feasts to share at gravestones my students may walk their feet, knees bent, to the left to feel a twist.  Approaching the next paragraph their feet migrate right.  We gradually move, and let these stories deepen in our joints.